Inklings (an acoustic EP)

A friend of mine once said you're not a real writer unless you have a discard pile. Whether that's true or not, the fact is that my stack of throwaways completely dwarfs the one with the keepers. And yet there's always been this third pile, full of things that kept quietly tapping me on the shoulder over the years. While they would never quite jump up and say "I am something," neither are they Nothing. So I have decided to give them their own little stage here, and let you be the judge. Some are new-ish, some less so, and some over a decade old. Some may get the full studio treatment one day, some may not. Some may not even be finished yet. But here they are, naked as can be; my inklings. Make of them what you will.

Memphis

I never thought I would release another album. The world of the single is upon us, and putting together a collection of songs to be heard as a unit seemed a bit like sending a buggywhip salesman to a car show. But in February of 2012, I brought the best band I've ever had to Memphis at the behest of a friend. We knew we would record a song by my late friend Jason Jackson at Sun Studio, but had no concrete plans for the two hours of free studio time we had inadvertently scored at Ardent. So we just started playing, and before I knew it, we had created...an album. Which, as I say, was not supposed to happen anymore. But it did, and I'm very glad to have captured this snapshot, not only of these songs, but of this group of musicians. I hope you enjoy it even half as much as we have.

Crackertoa (AM 820) - single

The Lesbian Song (Southern Belles) - single

Recorded at the famous Sun Studio in Memphis, this tune is a raucous rumble through southern culture, penned by the late great Jason Jackson during the mid-1990s. The song is performed by Jackson's compatriots & former bandmates in the matthew show and released for the first time ever on the one-year anniversary of his death in 2011. Find more of Jackson's tunes at naivemusic.com

february

When I began this album in 2005, I wanted to create something truly new. Inspired by documentary photographers like Walker Evans & Bill Brandt, as well as musicians with documentary tendencies such as my friend Paul of Mocha Lab, I set about creating an album of what I like to call docu-pop. February is the result.

I sat down with five friends, all of whom were in the place of reflection that comes with leaving your twenties behind, without quite knowing what to do with the unrealized dreams that accompanied them. The resulting dissonance was the subject of our conversations, which I recorded at length and pored through extensively in the following months. In doing so, I found wisdom, humor, insight, and often very surprising realizations. We tackled the nature of hope, disappointment, and ugly truth, all in the spirit of adapting George Orwell's "power of facing unpleasant facts" for the new millennium.

The same sorts of thoughts were shaping my songwriting at the time, and as I began recording the new songs, I matched them with pieces of the aforementioned conversations. What emerged was a case study of five people, each at critical points in their lives, asking the old question: Is that all there is? Accompanied by songs exploring the same territory, the album is as much a documentary as it is a collection of pop songs.

texas

One day in late 1999, I sat in a Dallas deli booth with my friend & hero Little Jack Melody, talking about our respective bands. I was throwing him some cockamamie fit of theory having to do with what I thought my band’s target demographic was, how hard it was to pick the Radio Song, and who knows what else. I don’t even remember. What I do remember was Little Jack dithering over his Reuben & chips and rather absently saying, "I don’t know, all I ever wanted to do was make an album I liked."

Strange as it may seem, this completely blew my mind. I had spent a little shy of a decade working so hard on the upward climb, so hard on winning over sports bar crowds, so hard on the rock-n-roll dream, that I had forgotten what it was that had made me want to write songs in the first place. I really wasn’t interested in rocking the house. I wanted to make an album I liked.

So as they say on the television, I busted up the band, cobbled together a studio, and proceeded to make... what? Well, it’s an album. It has fast songs, slow songs, songs with drums, and songs without them. There are guitars, household objects, sounds from the backyard, whatever I like. And lots & lots of melodies.

Interestingly, what came out of this project is a document of sorts. A document of my life to date. Dayjobs, gigs, self-important doormen, fear of hipness, whatever.

But truly, honestly, what you see before you is an album I like. And since everyone believes in their own good taste, I happen to think you’ll like it as well.

Ah Pook the Destroyer - The Silver Key

In early 2010, during a conversation with my friend Paul Shapera (he who is known as Mocha Lab), I mentioned the idea of doing a piece of music based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story The Silver Key. The emailing of tracks between our locations in Texas and Serbia ensued, and as the recording progressed, it became evident that this was becoming something greater than the sum of its parts. To that end, instead of releasing it as Mocha Lab and the matthew show, we dubbed the new entity Ah Pook the Destroyer, whose debut album The Silver Key is now available for your listening pleasure.

I am extremely proud of this work, and I believe it not only stands on its own, but perhaps can help bring to light those elements of Lovecraft's work that were not based on horror, but on philosophy and the human condition. You can read the story here, and I encourage you to check out the album. It's one of the best things I've ever done, and may inaugurate a new branch of the many things that I do.

Safely Down - The Songs of Jason Jackson - album

A tribute album for our dearly departed friend, produced by Grammy winner John Hampton and featuring a host of amazing talents. the matthew show contributed two songs, and matthew co-produced the album.

Roadtrip Nation - DVDs

the matthew show's instrumental tune The Wandering Jew, Part II is featured on the 2005 season DVD, and instrumental versions of his texas songs Old Enough and Mountaintop 4th of July are included on the 2006 season DVD.